Cloud computing models are becoming increasingly popular in the enterprise space. Increasingly, enterprises may use cloud platforms to provide on-demand access to a pool of compute resources that may then be used to provide infrastructure, platforms and software as a service (IaaS, Paas and SaaS). The benefits of this approach are significant, as cloud platform services may be rapidly provisioned on demand with minimal service provider interaction. Cloud deployed applications or resources are also easily accessible. A cloud computing implementation of a software application may allow an organization to access the application through the internet without needing to control an existing technology infrastructure supporting the application.
Enterprises may seek to utilize cloud service provider offerings in various ways. While the commercial benefits of cloud deployment of a software application, for example, may be obvious to an enterprise, such deployment may also involve significant capital expenditure and/or operational expenditure if the enterprise chooses to set up and manage a private cloud infrastructure. Alternatively, an existing public cloud infrastructure may be exploited in order to reduce such costs. Regardless of deployment model, it may be desirable to be able to create a bridge between a public and private cloud model, a hybrid model that also provides for application and data integration with public cloud software-as-a-service offerings. Consequently, there may be demand for asecure gateway to access public cloud resources through a single prism sitting inside the enterprise wall.
Another commercial consideration in cloud deployment is in determining the suitability of a particular application or resource for such deployment. Therefore, it may be desirable to take into account the deployment model and characteristics of the application workload to determine the right fit cloud deployment model.
An additional consideration may involve formalizing enterprise social conversation in order to provide effective governance of cloud workload deployments, such that the enterprise has a large degree of control over policy application to a particular workload, even if the workload is deployed in a public cloud platform, or a private cloud platform, or any combination thereof. What is needed, then, is an integrated cloud brokerage solution that addresses the management of cloud workloads across a hybrid cloud ecosystem and aims at accelerating enterprise cloud adoption by adopting a human oriented interaction model.